Full of eyes, all around and within.
The Choir
Second only to the Seraphim, the Cherubim are the guardians of divine wisdom and the keepers of God’s glory. The Hebrew kerub is of uncertain origin, often linked to an Akkadian root for one who intercedes or blesses, though a long tradition following the grammarians read the name as “fullness of knowledge.” In the schema of Pseudo-Dionysius they receive the fire of the Seraphim above them and transmute it into light — the radiance of understanding poured out upon all creation. They are not the plump winged infants of later sentimental art, the putti that Renaissance painters borrowed from pagan cupids, but vast and terrible beings.
The Cherubim are woven through the whole of scripture. It was a cherub with a flaming sword that God set at the gate of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life. Cherubim of beaten gold overshadowed the mercy seat above the Ark of the Covenant, and God is repeatedly named as the One “enthroned upon the cherubim,” riding upon a cherub as upon the wind. Ezekiel saw them by the river Chebar as fourfold living creatures, each with the faces of man, lion, ox, and eagle turned to the four quarters of the world, their bodies and their wheels studded with eyes, moving wherever the spirit went without turning. The Apocalypse gathers these images into the four living creatures around the throne, full of eyes before and behind, who never rest from crying the thrice-holy — later read as the emblems of the four Evangelists.
The office of the Cherubim is to know, and through knowing to guard. Where the Seraphim burn, the Cherubim behold; theirs is the clarity that sees all things in the light of their divine cause and preserves the sacred from profanation. They are the throne-bearers of glory, the intelligences through whom the pattern of creation is held in perpetual, luminous focus — angels of the eye rather than the flame, though the two are never truly separate at the height of heaven.
Attributes
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Sphere | First (closest to God) |
| Rank in hierarchy | 2 |
| Role | Guardians of wisdom and glory |
| Governs | Knowledge, illumination, the guarding of the sacred |
In the Tradition
The medieval theologians assigned to the Cherubim the perfection of wisdom, the contemplation of God’s beauty and order, and the ministry of illumination by which the mysteries above are made bearable to the ranks below. Pseudo-Dionysius derived their name from a power to know and to see God and to receive the greatest gift of light, then to pour that knowledge generously upon the choirs beneath them. Aquinas, comparing the first two choirs, held that the Seraphim excel in the ardor of charity and the Cherubim in the fullness of knowledge, and that either gift may be called the higher according to the aspect considered — for perfect love and perfect knowledge are, at the summit, inseparable. In this the Cherubim became the patrons of the contemplative and the scholar alike. Artists, following Ezekiel rather than the nursery, painted them blue or gold, many-winged and many-eyed, bearing up the chariot-throne of the Almighty — the deep, watchful intelligence that stands between the fire of love and the seat of judgment.
Related
Choirs — Seraphim · Thrones · Dominions · Virtues · Powers · Principalities · Archangels · Angels Archangels — Michael · Gabriel · Raphael · Uriel · Haniel · Sandalphon · Metatron